


Building Steam With a Grain of Salt

by dezagirl



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Cyborgs, Engineer!Dirk, Implied Relationships, Maybe - Freeform, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-02-27 03:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dezagirl/pseuds/dezagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First there were four of them, bright-eyed, intelligent, fingers lithe enough to place stars in the night sky without cracking its glass. </p>
<p>Now there is one of them left, Dirk Strider, and all that remains of his friends are their blueprints. He will make their dreams come alive. He will build what they were unable to.</p>
<p>Starting with Roxy's designs, Dirk builds four robots. Each is intended to combat the Condesce, and her slowly strengthening army. </p>
<p>Thousands of robots exist in the service of the Earth Freedom Corps, but Dirk's touch brings something to these robots that is not present in most. Sentience, a heart. Something broader.</p>
<p>Dirk didn't want to feel for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcxsheROd3E
> 
> mood music for the first chapter. enjoy.

Prologue

_\- - - -_

The girl in the blueprints has little fond scribblings around her.  _my daoghter_ and  _preshe isnt she ? ? ?_ demarcate a pink margin around the design of the robot. The robot is delicate yet strong- Roxy's illustrations of the robot are precise and clean, which seems counterintuitive, if one were to inspect Roxy's writings- messy, drunken. 

There are blueprints for the interior of the robot, but it seems that Roxy has intended this one to look realistic- no plastic, hard shell for her. The designs are difficult. Flesh would have to be grown and stretched over false organs. It is more a cyborg than a robot. 

Dirk, his hands broad, thumbs smeared with oil from his day's work, eyes aching from staying up too late three days in a row, stares at the paper and thinks,  _This is fucking inconvenient._ Building something so realistic, even with today's technology, is difficult. He doesn't know why she wants to make it like this, but, fuck. 

He has to. Roxy's been missing for months. This is her last will and testament, so to speak- and when Dirk had first found these blueprints in Roxy's old EFC-assigned room (Earth Freedom Corps to the civvies), shoved into one drawer of her regulation dresser, he'd known that he had to design it for her.

This had been the foursome's assignment- design a battle-robot for the EFC. It was something that was for their last year of EFC-assigned coursework. This would be Dirk's last year in Prep school- next would be an Engineering school, maybe, or a Flight school, or a Captain school, if Dirk really wanted. The four had done their focus in mechanical engineering, and they'd all been fascinated with robots, so when they'd been given the options for their last large assignment, each one, with wonder, had chosen to design their own robot.

Final exams are over, and Dirk finally has time to do this- so he will.

His own EFC-assigned room is small and square. His desk and dresser are both covered in tools and parts; the only thing which lights the room is a small desk lamp, shining onto the blueprints lying beneath Dirk's hands. Besides that, the room is dark, blinds drawn shut against the midnight sky, the messiness of the room not close to being hidden by the darkness.

Dirk examines the blueprints once more, head aching. Three other designs are pushed to the left of his desk- Jane's prototype, Jake's prototype, and his own prototype. 

The school typically produced the robots themselves, if the designs were satisfactory. Dirk, however, had long since exceeded the school's expectations in building and engineering, though he wouldn't tell  _them_ that- that would mean more coursework, and he needed free time to do what he wanted. Like this, for example.

Build what he desired, investigate what he wanted. Look into Jane's, Jake's, Roxy's disappearances. It was all he'd thought about for the last few months.

Dirk quietly pulls himself out of his reverie and focuses, really focuses. 

_Purple eyes, glassy. Lithe body, ballerina-like. Would attack with precision and grace. Keep the weight minimal. This robot needs to be light._ Roxy's included specifications for the smallest things, including hair color and style, which makes Dirk smile absently and hurt with want for his closest friend. Fondness consumes him and aches.

He can see the screws that he'd fix into her shoulders, let her twist her joints around, let her gracefully slice and dice and twirl and do whatever she will. A combat bot is all she would be to the EFC, but Dirk doesn't want her to be just that.

He's sent a false blueprint for himself to the EFC, for a robot he tried just enough for. His own design is his, and he will keep Rose safe just as he will the others.

Her fingers will be slim and skilled. She will move like a human, fluid and natural. She will be  _better_ than a human.

Prototype  _Rose Lalonde_. 

He begins.

\- - - -

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy Chapter Two!
> 
> Mood music for entering Dirk's apartment and observing the robots.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6o69eV6vLo&list=PLoH6v7VpNzxVrRXp_My1weJhzw1S-r-40&index=4

_We call it cutting._

_It isn't exactly that. To me it goes much deeper. Cutting...implies severing something. It really should be called 'assembly'. Mosaic is assembling something, to create a whole. To create an idea._

-Gramatik, 'Dreambig'

* * *

CHAPTER ONE: AFTERNOON SOUL

* * *

 

A year later, and Dirk has finished each robot in its entirety, more than pleased with the results. He's graduated Prep School and he's staying the summer on campus at a place called  _Crocker Engineering_ , one of the best schools in the entire country. 

His apartment is spacious, and presumably, only for his use. His scholarship covered lodging and tuition for the next four years- though, it also provided a nice sum of money each month towards his 'personal needs'. Dirk didn't regret working hard in Prep School. This was worth it- to have a place of his own.

Clean granite counters, a metal sink that  _works_ , water actually comes  _out_ of the damn thing (unlike the one at Dirk's childhood home, the one where the drain was blocked by mold and the faucet was rusted). A fridge, clean white, towering in the kitchen, is covered in magnets, of all things, magnets and pictures and god forbid the occasional crayon drawing (Harley likes making these. Dirk can't figure out why.)

He's sitting in the den fiddling with a screwdriver and metal chain. It's a rudimentary charm bracelet, each piece of it clinking together noisily. There's a ballerina shoe, cleverly crafted; there is a metal bow, curves realistic; a globe hangs off the end of the chain. The world, on a bracelet.

Though the bracelet's pretty enough, it does have a function.

At least- that's what Dirk tells himself, as he sighs and twists the charms onto the bracelet through a weird process which somehow, again, involves a screwdriver. No pretty things- only functional things. Dirk just...hasn't figured out how this can be functional,  _yet._

Rose had requested the bracelet- Rose, who Dirk can imagine dancing in the kitchen, quietly moving her limbs in tangent, making something mechanically beautiful out of her movements. Though the false flesh knitted over her bones makes her seem human, her careful, precise motion is nothing but magnificently robotic in form. The eyes, lavender, shifting to a darker purple when she's focused. The way she smirks, in her achievements- like Roxy, smirking at  _him-_

Dirk, distracted, twists the screwdriver through a hole of the chain and blinks, shaking himself out of his reverie and focusing on the bracelet again. 

Harley and Egbert are in front of him, by the TV; Egbert's pale fingers are playing across the carpet, strangely. Dirk's noticed this motion more than a few times- he's worried before that it's a mistake in his hardware, but the motion is so spread out, so  _not_ rote, that Dirk figures it isn't. It involves some weird gesture of Egbert's wrists and some delicate flexing of his fingers.

Harley, meanwhile, is scribbling excitedly in green across a piece of paper. When she realizes Dirk's shaded gaze has fallen on her, Harley gives him a wolfish grin behind large, circular lenses. Harley'd liked the look of them- Egbert had taken a pair of rectangular ones. It irritates Dirk slightly- form over function- but, he says nothing, giving no indication to Harley that he's seen her smile.

The TV they're beside is playing Spongebob, but the volume's on zero. No distractions. Dirk likes silence, and they've learned this, by now.

Dirk's mouth, despite his opposition to showing emotion, pulls down involuntarily at a stray thought-  _Strider._ His own robot's...somewhere within the apartment.

Strider bothers him.

His emotions seemed disturbed. His emotional spectrum is more like an emotional line segment, and the two dots are 'bored' and 'visibly amused at the perceived patheticness of his peers', respectively. 

Dirk taps the screwdriver absently against a chain of the bracelet. No use thinking about those things now.

 

* * *

 

_DERSE_

_Y.C. 9999_

Beyond ash-colored Alternia, beyond the glow of its pink moon  _Carnivale_ and its green moon  _Rana Secunda,_ Derse rests, a deep purple, behind seven unseeable yet ever-present gates. Prospit glows golden and ominous paralell to it in the deepness of space- its brightness is a reminder of both past aggression, and the current pact between the two planets.

Derse's darkened soils, the color of ash, rest and sift beneath the feet of similarly-colored carapacians. Fuschia-and-amethyst buildings rise high above the dirt, loom imperiously over citizens going about their daily lives. Intricate bridgework links the purple towers of the  _Fortress of Justice_ \- stairwells twine towards glorious, spearheaded peaks. _  
_

It is a peaceful scene, one-

"I told you to  _back off on the food,_ ya fuckin' punk-"

A narrow-eyed troll hisses in response at this, ruffled black hair sticking up, his fists balling up angrily as he snatches a bag away from a taller Dersite. "I haven't eaten the entire trip and this planet's full of food, you fucking nookmuncher! One fucking piece of meat won't hurt." 

The Dersite's eyes turn into white-hot slits, but it says nothing, though one clawed hand twitches conspicuously towards a knife on his hip. The nubby kid is right, as much as he hates to admit it. 

The Dersite's clothes are plain, drab. Black and gray. Derse's court had shifted its attire from 'Harlequin' to a more somber 'gray, gray, and more gray' upon the piercing of the first gate of Derse and Prospit- Alternia's first and last Condescian Helmsman, driven to insanity in the bleakness of deep space, had experienced some sort of realization, and, through his psionic abilities, glimpsed the gate. The yellow beams had pierced it and shattered it, leaving a broken spirogram of transparent glass floating in space, unseen to all but the Prosptian and Dersite people themselves, and those with sufficient technology or psychic ability.

The Dersite watches the kid gnaw on the meat and wonders about these issues, albeit in a distracted way-  _troll kids, always acting like they're starvin', fuckin' scavengin' in the trash cans and shit when I found him, whole fuckin' planet of Alternia's a mess, stupid fucking recruitment, Derse doesn't need a bunch a' fuckin interstellar orphanshits-_ _  
_

Though his inner dialogue is less poignant than a book penned on the political climate of Alternia might be, it's apt.

The kid wipes his mouth, having devoured a steak in roughly twenty seconds. If the kid-  _Karkat Vantas fuckin' lousy troll kid_ , as the Dersite might have called him- had been from anywhere but Alternia, he may have questioned the Dersite's choice of transportable snacks. However, in Alternia, a slice of cooked moobeast flesh would be something perfectly reasonable to have on hand- so, he did not. If the Dersite had considered this possibility, he would have been grateful the  _fucking snotnosed brat_ was from Alternia and thus understood- if he had to explain to another carapacian one more time that he  _likes carryin' around a good bloody piece of meat, you halfwit, can't a man eat what he goddamn pleases_ he might stab another innocent civillian and lose his title of Sovereign Slayer. Even the personal hitman to the queen, in a kingdom of bleak darkness and uncertainty, couldn't get away with murdering citizens of the city-state.

The kid- Karkat- stares at the Dersite demandingly, imperiously, almost, despite his short stature. How short was the kid anyway? Not much over five foot, that was for sure.

"So your name is Noir? Jack Noir?" The kid's dark eyes flash questioningly.

The deep purple of Dersite architecture looms behind them as Jack retorts, amused. "Yeah, kid. Good to know you're not deaf, just starving half to death. Next you'll be tellin' me your planet's full of intelligent conquerors and not a bunch of fuckup, stupid losers with barely a speck of conquering blood in their veins, 'less your Condesce selectively breeded it in." 

The insult doesn't really strike Jack as biting enough, so he adds, "Fuckin' lousy planet of morons", which strikes him as quaint. 

Karkat screeches out something about the glory of the Condesce, and Jack notes it. The kid's a mutant, according to his Queen's (stupid broad) reports, so he hadn't expected the loyalty. They'll have to fix that if their plan's going to work.

Noir distracts the kid by pointing towards the Fortress. The two head off towards the purple building, their chatter loud, the streets strangely empty and quiet in contrast. Peaceful, save for two wanderers' loud conversing.

* * *

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Test, since last chapter didn't show up in queue. Enjoy!


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